(01-26-2019, 09:55 AM)Jason Wrote: When people ask me if I'm Jewish, my immediate answer is yes. However, I don't identify with a movement any longer. I used to identify as Reform, and then I attended a Conservative synagogue regularly. I no longer attend, and I struggle with the concept of God. I live in a Jewish environment and constantly have issues relating to Judaism on my mind, but I don't see the benefit of the halachic framework in the real world. I feel that mankind should be free of restrictions that create boundaries... that our ultimate goal is freedom. We fight against freedom because we see it as destructive, and perhaps that is true. Freedom breaks down barriers and climbs walls, but we are literally told to create a wall that would keep us from violating the Torah. I don't have that wall in my life anymore.
So, although I identify as a Jew and take pride in the fact that I have access to Jewish literature, philosophy, ethics, etc., I don't identify as a follower of anyone. In fact, the word assur ("forbidden") is my least favorite in the dictionary. In that sense, I guess I would go along with the founder of Christianity, Paul, when he said that "all things are permissible to me, but not all things are beneficial" (1 Corinthians 6:12: = מֻתׇּר לִי הַכֹּל אַךְ לֹא הַכֹּל לְטוֹבָתִי).
Thank you, @Jason.
Parenthetically, you inadvertently misquote Paul.
The following quote and commentary are from The New Oxford Annotated Bible; New Revised Version With The Apocrypha (Fully Revised Fourth Edition):
Quote:6:12 "All things are lawful for me," but not all things are beneficial.
6:12-20: Christians going to prostitutes. ... Paul quotes a slogan of the Corinthians, a proud bast of freedom, asserting liberation from cultural taboos. Paul counters by insisting upon the mutually beneficial as the criterion of moral judgment.
Best I can tell, Paul was neither embracing nor rejecting the Corinthian slogan. He was countering it.
L'shalom.
To be is to stand for. - Abraham Joshua Heschel